Red Cross forced to destroy blood donations of 50,000 people

The Washington Post

Published Sunday, December 16, 2001

WASHINGTON -- In managing an unprecedented outpouring of blood donors after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the American Red Cross said it tripled its inventory for surgeries and other treatments but was forced to destroy donations from nearly 50,000 people because their blood was not needed.

"We did our best guess and came within 5 percent of using it all," said Brian Rhoa, vice president of finance and planning for Red Cross blood services. "You can ask America, 'Are you happy with that?' "

In its first public accounting of the post-Sept. 11 blood drive, the Red Cross said 928,293 pints were donated from Sept. 10 to Oct. 14 at its 36 blood centers around the country. That was about 287,000 more pints than were collected during the same period last year. Of those donations, 49,860 pints were destroyed because the hospitals that buy blood from the Red Cross did not need the units. The Red Cross released the figures in response to repeated requests from The Washington Post.

The Red Cross, which supplies about half the blood used by U.S. hospitals, was criticized by other blood groups for continuing to solicit donations after it was clear that most of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were dead. Donors at some Red Cross centers waited as long as six hours to give blood after the attacks, which killed more than 3,200 people.

Blood has a shelf life of 42 days. The amount of blood the Red Cross discarded after Sept. 11 was about twice what it normally loses. But the Red Cross noted that every blood donation yields some lifesaving byproduct, such as plasma.

Red Cross officials fear that blood donations might further drop off during the holiday period, when they usually fall anyhow, when donors learn that thousands of pints collected after the attacks were destroyed.

"Am I satisfied with this? No, I would like the number to be zero. But that isn't realistic," Rhoa said.

The Red Cross said immediately after the attacks that little blood would go to waste, highlighting a plan to quickly freeze as many as 100,000 pints. The attacks underscored the need to stockpile frozen blood and provided the outpouring of blood and money it needed to launch the program, the Red Cross said.

As of Dec. 4,, however, the Red Cross had frozen only 9,500 of the pints collected after Sept. 11 and was reassessing its plan for a large frozen stockpile. The Red Cross said it was unable to freeze more because it didn't have enough equipment, supplies and trained staff.

The Red Cross now says it has dropped the 100,000-unit goal for freezing and "will continue to assess what level should be maintained" in light of the time and expense required.

The Red Cross had planned to use $50 million of the money given to the Liberty Fund, set up after the attacks, to launch the frozen-blood reserve project. In November, however, congressional and public complaints about using the fund for long-term projects, not just the needs of Sept. 11 victims and their families, prompted the Red Cross to change its plan.

It announced last month that it would use the fund exclusively for victims and that the money for the frozen-blood reserve would come from other accounts or targeted donations.

Normally, Red Cross officials said, about 3 percent of the blood prepared for transfusion isn't used within its shelf life and is burned. In the weeks leading up to Sept. 11, only about 1 percent of the blood donated was destroyed.

After Sept. 11, the Red Cross threw out as much as 8 percent of the blood donated in one week, and averaged 5.4 percent over five weeks.